No trip to visit DH this weekend after all. Snowing here, snowing there, snowing everywhere in between. Winter storm advisories, travel advisories: Not auspicious for a 5 hour drive!
So 15 yo daughter Sadie and I have an open weekend at home. I'd cancelled all usual weekend classes and engagements in anticipation of being gone. So there is nothing on the calendar today and tomorrow, nothing we have to do. This is what I see out the kitchen door (complete with reflected kitchen lights, lol!)
Sad: Haven't seen sweet husband in almost 2 weeks now. But we talk/text/skype- a lot!! And he will be home here for the entire week of Christmas!!
Glad: Instead of this being the 4th of 4 weekends out of town, there is a lovely aspect to being at home. Laundry and dishes are all caught up. Tree decorating and present wrapping are next. And this is what I see with a 90 degree turn from that snowy landscape. Ahhhhh.
Conundrum: In the not so very distant past (i.e., 46+ days ago), a totally free weekend would have been a joyous time for wine-drinking! No concerns about driving, no having to be a certain place at a certain time- a wine free-for-all! And I DO feel a bit of that pull, toward that lazy, no-concerns, dreamy, floaty place. But I could never stay there for long. In my efforts to keep the 'tank' (of alcohol in my system) continuously 'topped up'- I would always overshoot. (There's that 'no more, thank you' button that is missing in my system!). The next stage would be falling asleep, where-ever I was- bed, sofa, dining room chair). Then waking up groggy and stiff, and starting again.
I guess that's where commitments and obligations, most of which involve driving here or there, kept me from just diving into alcohol and staying there. But most Mondays I would think: gosh, that sure was a short weekend! I really didn't get to do much that I needed to/was looking forward to doing.
This weekend: I'm focusing on:
*the pleasure of working toward a clean tidy house
*enjoying sweet daughter
*enjoying some cooking-experimenting time
*pinterest
*Wall street journal
*decorating house for Christmas and wrapping presents
*a new mystery novel
*catching up on charts and email from work (on my treadmill desk!)
*working on quilts and glass beads
*online yoga and pilates classes
*frolicking with the dogs
That sure looks like enough to fill an entire weekend with nourishing and relaxing activities.
No Alcohol need apply!!
So 15 yo daughter Sadie and I have an open weekend at home. I'd cancelled all usual weekend classes and engagements in anticipation of being gone. So there is nothing on the calendar today and tomorrow, nothing we have to do. This is what I see out the kitchen door (complete with reflected kitchen lights, lol!)
Sad: Haven't seen sweet husband in almost 2 weeks now. But we talk/text/skype- a lot!! And he will be home here for the entire week of Christmas!!
Glad: Instead of this being the 4th of 4 weekends out of town, there is a lovely aspect to being at home. Laundry and dishes are all caught up. Tree decorating and present wrapping are next. And this is what I see with a 90 degree turn from that snowy landscape. Ahhhhh.
I guess that's where commitments and obligations, most of which involve driving here or there, kept me from just diving into alcohol and staying there. But most Mondays I would think: gosh, that sure was a short weekend! I really didn't get to do much that I needed to/was looking forward to doing.
This weekend: I'm focusing on:
*the pleasure of working toward a clean tidy house
*enjoying sweet daughter
*enjoying some cooking-experimenting time
*Wall street journal
*decorating house for Christmas and wrapping presents
*a new mystery novel
*catching up on charts and email from work (on my treadmill desk!)
*working on quilts and glass beads
*online yoga and pilates classes
*frolicking with the dogs
That sure looks like enough to fill an entire weekend with nourishing and relaxing activities.
No Alcohol need apply!!
What an awesome weekend! I'm having a similar one as my weekend plans fell through due to weather.
ReplyDeleteWolfie spoke to me last night. He tried to convince me that I needed to buy vodka and hunker down during the storm. And since I'm alone this weekend, no one need ever know. Gah! I bitch slapped him into tomorrow and woke up to a beautiful winter wonderland that I could've never appreciated with a hangover.
Your back yard is beautiful! Glad you are enjoying home life. :)
Yeah, it's a funny, energy-intensive shift from: "Free time= relax with bottle" to "Free time= be comfortable with myself'. NOT easy, but it feels like a good and true path to me. That Wolfie should be pretty battered by now!!
DeleteWhat a blessing in disguise! As hard as it is missing your husband, how sweet to have alone time with your daughter. I never drank in the day but certainly wasn't my BEST when my kids were small. I'll have to ask their memories that one…I love your list of possibilities. Have a wonderful SUnday
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Judging by the older two kids, they go from 15 years old to moving out of the house in a blink of time. I've told all three of them what I am doing with this 100 day challenge, and they are so great at cheering me on! For a 20 year old boy and a 21 year old girl, their compassion and support seems extraordinary to me- so perhaps my drinking through the years didn't harm them as much as I have feared?
DeleteYou are a busy lady. Me I went for a run this morning and having showered have got back into my jim-jams! Am going to watch The Hobbit DVD with my kids in front of the fire later and we aren't going anywhere so who needs clothes! :)
ReplyDeleteLike so many of us who turn to alcohol for respite, I am a classic over-achiever, probably to cover up concerns of inadequacy and inferiority. One of my tasks in sobriety is to learn to chill- which it sounds like you already have mastered. Watching the Hobbit in your jammies with the kids by the fire sounds like Winter Nirvana!!
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